Lovely morning. It is my bliss to pick up and read the English-language magazine that arrives once every two weeks. I have been reading this magazine since I was a university student, and the first time I read it I was astonished at my English ability and despaired because I could not grasp the content of the stories at all. Even so, I have been gradually reading the articles in the magazine, learning words and phrases that I come across frequently, and copying expressions that I would like to use myself into my notebook.
Yesterday, too, the cover of a magazine I received – a marvellous Japanese baseball player – caught my eye and I turned the pages, looking forward to reading this article. As I turned the pages, looking at the advertisements for watch brands presented alongside lovely scenes from around the world, skimming through the table of contents, reading the two-page advertisement for a Japanese insurance company, and skimming through the letters from readers section, a photograph caught my eye in one of the headlines of a large article called The Brief.
It is one that shows the painful devastation that is actually happening in the world today. I then proceeded to read the article inside. The article is lined with words that I wouldn’t want to see if it were true, and it tells me that things that are unthinkable in Japan are actually happening somewhere in the world. However, what I always feel when I read foreign magazines and articles like this is that the impression I get is completely different depending on how the event is reported. Even if there are the same facts, the impression the recipient has is completely different depending on the perspective from which the article or news is composed and how it is cut.
On a slightly different note, I was once surprised to find that the trailers and posters for so-called children’s films were very different in different countries around the world. I sensed a clear difference in what is targeted and how in marketing in Japan and the US. The differences in marketing techniques in different countries around the world were strikingly different. In countries such as the US, the posters and trailers are exciting and American comic book style, while in countries such as Japan, the film is presented as a warm and heart-warming film.
If we realise that the way in which a film is presented in a particular country can lead to its box-office success, and that there are various marketing methods for this purpose, it is very possible that the news and information we see in our daily lives may also be altered to suit the country in which we are living. Some people might also be very convinced that the news and information we see in our daily lives could also be changed to suit the country. I’m not going to go into that, because people have different opinions on whether it’s good or bad, and it’s certainly true that the key to selling something is how well the marketing strategy works, but what I do want to note here is that it’s really important to know what you’re doing. I’m not going to go into that, but what I do want to note here is that it is really important to know things. Sometimes ignorance makes people fearful, and they say or do things that are sad or hurtful.
Of course, I don’t know if everything this magazine says is true, and the information a person gets depends on how that person tries to get that information, and it also depends on their situation, where they live and the country they are in. However, I sincerely feel that we should spare no effort in trying to know.
Finally, I read the article I was looking forward to the most in this issue. It is an article about an athlete who has been successful in Japan and is now very well known in the USA. The article shows not only how he is perceived and celebrated in the USA, but also how he has thought about and chosen his life up to this point. The article concludes by saying that his best is yet to come and that there are many people who sincerely wish him the best in his future endeavours.